Broken
by Shadowflame611
Summary: Shattered, jagged, torn, and crushed. Pick up your pieces, learn, and mend anew. Beta-read by Simone Robinson.
1. Splinter: Shattered

_(Sorry for long A/N. Succinct is not a word I use to describe myself.)_

_For every chapter given, a character will describe a situation which broke his heart. Sounds sappy, right? I know, I want to slap myself. Anyway, I wanted a little something to post while I'm not writing and at school. Hence this fic, where I kindof practice with the voices of the characters._

_Each of the four boys and Splinter will have their own chapter. Since the situations given can yield an experience shared by many, all accounts(/chapters) in this fic didn't necessarily happen in the same verse. In other words… say someone died. Well, that's pretty heartbreaking. The characters might all share the same sentiments on the event and may 'pick' that as their little chapter. That's not what I'm going for. Therefore, the Splinter in this chapter may not have necessarily have the same experiences at the Splinter in the following chapters. That goes for all of the characters. _

_I'm not a big Splinter fan. I don't know why. Maybe I just don't really like writing him. Either way, hope I do him justice here!_

_Many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, __**Shimonu**__** (aka **__**Simone Robinson**__)! It was soo helpful to have someone looking over my stuff before I post it! Check out her stuff!_

_Warning: character death in __**at least one of these chapters.**__ I'm not saying which chapters, and I'm not head-counting the deaths. This is just a heads up for those who do not enjoy reading about that sort of gig._

_**I do not own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and related characters. **_

_**Splinter: Sunlight, shattered.**_

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_ Weeks later, I presented my sons with their masks, having decided to begin their training. They each were allowed to pick their own color. Michelangelo and Raphael were the first to rush forward._

_ "Orange!" My youngest claimed. He turned to me. "Like that sunlight!"_

_ "No, red!" The other crossed his arms over his chest. "The sun turned everything red! And you didn't even go up to it, so you wouldn't know, you big baby!"_

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Underground, day and night creep by unbidden, indifferent to those unfortunate enough to have handicap to their presence. Molded together to a confused lump of time, one must learn to rely on instinct in order to determine the position of the sun and moon.

A son of no man, I have little trouble referring to my more animalistic side. The pull of the moon holds precedent over the sun; it puts strength in my bones, makes my heart beat an increment faster. My muscles twitch to run, to float in the cool, darkened air, to absorb the relative calm the stars bring.

I resist.

I have found anchorage in the lives of four young turtles, mutated in the same fateful accident which created me, empowered me with the gift of man-language and, perhaps most importantly, the capacity to love. These boys, _my_ boys, are much more than the love I could have had for any man as his pet, though memories of my past brought in to this more intellectual mind do carry the same emotion.

My master, Yoshi, fallen to the hands of men who were only similar in terms of their flesh... Not the same in soul, _never_ soul. My beloved caretaker… if he could only see me now. What would he think if I could converse with him, could tell him the love I have now extends beyond the gratitude associated with food?

It is best not to dwell. It only clouds the mind with sorrow, only serves to drag my attention away from what is most important.

"Most important:" feed these children, my _sons_, keep them safe and well until our life paths solidify.

Unfortunately over the years it became more difficult to contain the children. First, they learned to walk. Then, to my dismay, they learned to run. Their energy is barely restrained, and must be burned lest they explode.

Therefore, it is most productive to include my sons in the search for useful items for the home. In the beginning of each trip, they express enthusiasm at the notion of finding new things, exciting items to look at and play with. Eventually, however, they become bored, and begin to wander. It was a blessing when they became old enough to understand the concept of danger, for me to explain the hazards which lurk on the surface.

Over time the sleeping schedule adjusted itself to the relative hours of day and night, with my sons awake during the daylight. Due to the possibility of more men being awake, I tended to lurk in the deepest part of the sewers at those times. However, I couldn't escape the fact that the best of the items were freshly exhausted from the outside world, which led us incrementally closer to the surface with each additional trip.

Raphael and Michelangelo accompanied me for my first trip to the near-surface where the underground boarders the outside world. Their brothers were content to sit and play with their toys, bored with the notion of digging around again. Due to the fact that we had gotten a decent-sized bag of "loot" just two days before, I allowed them to remain behind with the promise that they stay in the relative safety of our home.

My "second-oldest" son has always been the most apprehensive of the four; he grew tired of the surroundings of our home very easily. It was completely without argument that I was able to commandeer him on this trip; for his part, Michelangelo was eager to follow his more temperamental brother around, his side of the conversation never-ending as he went back and forth between addressing his brother and myself.

"I wonder if we'll find anything good today? You said we were going further up, Master Splinter, to somewhere we don't look all the time? Actually, we don't look there ever, right? Hey Raphie, let's race! I bet I can beat you! Remember the time I raced you and Donnie? You guys say I'm stupid, but at least I can run faster. If a monster comes or something, I think it might be _smart_ to run away fast, not stupid. Right Master Splinter? Lookit that rock! It looks like a apple! If you eat it, it'll probably hurt more than-"

Yes, it was certainly a good idea to include Michelangelo, whose supply of energy near dwarfs that of his brothers. I watched him skip from tile to tile, playing games with the patterns he found there. Today he seemed determined to only tread on the dark gray ones. Raphael, for his part, was searching his hardest, dutifully snapping his head back and forth between the running water and the path we walked.

Eventually, Michelangelo found a large stick, busying himself by running up the path and floating it down the water until he all but bowled in to me in his haste to retrieve it. I called warnings to him, and he merely laughed.

Raphael also moved ahead. As always, I kept the two in my periphery as I began to fill my makeshift sac. After a while, however, the bulk of my attention focused itself on the task at hand.

_"Master Splinter!"_ The voice carried no alarm, and so I moved my way to them calmly. That is, until I saw that the two of them were standing in the sun-shadow of a large, very _open_ drainage junction. The light emitting from the setting star was bringing out rich colors in the stone and water which under darkness do not exist, and the two boys seemed so enthralled by the sight that they didn't notice my presence in the shadows behind them. I looked through the gate to make sure nobody would catch sight of them, heart racing, yet sensing no immediate danger.

I remember the air blew a quality fresher than the sewage scent, tinged with salt from the harbor. Gulls could be heard faintly in the distance, scavenging for their own survival. Somewhere out and below, the _bloop_ of water could be heard lapping at the cement outside. The light shone brilliantly against the reflective surface of the wavelets, magnifying the effect of the light to a near blinding level.

Michelangelo peeked fearfully over Raphael's shoulder as my son put his hand to the light, marveling at the way the orange hue lit up tones in his skin not visible under the dullness of the sewer artificials. He turned his arm, staring at his palm, then his knuckles, and moved the hand so that the shadows of the gate played over the uneven surface there.

It seemed to be too much stimulation, too many alien sensations for my youngest. Michelangelo lost heart and turned, coming to me when he saw my shadow beckon him. Raphael continued to examine himself, then abruptly stepped forth, immersing himself in the shining beacons. He turned to grin at us. _Look at what I can do._

Bending at the knees, he brought his palms down to the sewer floor, _slap- slap._ "It's warm!"

"Sunlight, my son," I supplied, albeit dumbly. Uncertainty kept my neck hairs raised.

He smiled at me again, blinked, and made as if to rush to the gate. "What else is-"

"Raphael!" Beside me I felt my youngest cringe at the tone, and softened my voice accordingly. "Come away from there." My more excitable son paused, looking unsure.

"But…" Face scrunched in the beginnings of defiance he half-turned, pointing a finger outside. "But I want…"

And suddenly, unexpectedly, the sight caused my heart to plummet as my mind supplied the finishing words for that sentence:

_But I want to go outside._

_ But I want to play with the other kids._

_ I want to go to school. I want to go to college._

_ I want to make friends._

_ I want to be an astronaut, a cowboy, a police man._

_ I want a woman to love me._

_ I want to leave here, to start a family of my own. That's how it's supposed to happen._

_ That's how it is for __**them.**_

_ …I want to __**feel the sun**__._

Something in my face caused the young turtle to move completely from his spot in the light and approach me, his head lowered as though expecting to be chastised. He pulled me from my thoughts, the high-pitch of his voice ringing clear though the fog.

"I didn't go! I didn't go over there!"

"No," I allotted, attempting to comfort with my tone as I slipped back in to the present. "You didn't. I apologize my son; I was nervous. Remember our discussions of the dangers outside?"

He was looking up at me, traces of curiosity mingling with the confusion there, all underneath a shaky foundation of understanding. He _didn't_ know the dangers of the world, translated to his own terms. He seemed to be the only one of the four willing to challenge my word. The knowledge sent a cold spike of fear through my chest, and I had to fight not to grab him to me lest he suddenly run off.

Slowly, he crept forward and buried his face in my neck. "Don't get nervous." I could hear the tears in his voice, the upset caused at the notion of my fear. "I won't go out there if that's what you want."

_...if that's what you want._

_ …what __**you**__ want._

Arriving home that day, my heart stayed heavy in my chest. It had it's first crack through it, a hairline which would eventually grow a chasm of fear and sorrow.

_I can only provide for them so much. Is it cruel to continue on this way?_

Perhaps it is. But I was, and I _am,_ too selfish to end it, to put them out of a life of rejection.

I have been gifted sentience. I have found love, and it supplies me well beyond what I need, what is limited in instinct… But I am my own jailer. I cannot change the world I am forcing them to live in, but I can drag them through it with me, kicking and screaming. I am unfair, I am selfish, and I must be the one to reject the world they crave before it has a chance to do the same to them.

In the end, that knowledge shatters me.


	2. Leonardo: Jagged

_ I like writing in Leo's POV. His words flow in a poetic way, which is cheesy at some points (you'll see) and not something that __**I**__ could come up with in regular conversation, but hey, cheers to him. I think that usually I come off a little uneducated when it comes to verbal convo, especially with my accent that people love to poke fun at by going "PAAK THE CAA IN THE PAAKIN LOT. LOL." _

_ Aaaaaanyway, here's his chappie. It's short, and I'm sorry for that. I could have kept up, but that would be beating a dead horse. Mike's is a little longer, I think. He'll probably be next._

_ By the way, sorry if this chapter's a little not-creative. Don's is worse. Guess what topic I tried to stay away from, but couldn't help myself with? Oooy._

_** Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and related characters are not mine. Beta read by **_**Simone Robinson!**

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_**Leonardo: Gone, jagged.**_

_I can't see him, I can't feel him. He is everywhere and nowhere. Memories are triggered so easily; they crush my chest, suffocate me. _

_ Gone.

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If there's one thing that I can say confidently, something that I know right from the bottom of my heart, it's that I've always known who we are.

I am a perfectionist which, by some ironic twist, does not make me perfect. I strive to do my best, and am constantly learning my lesson. I enforce my authority and when I mess up I dwell, and my brothers just roll their eyes in the end, having accepted the "quirk" in my personality.

We are brothers, a family. The words describe us completely, yet there isn't enough meaning there to do us any justice. We _love_ each other, but in a world where the word is tossed around, four overused letters can't possibly convey the connection we have.

We are pushed from society. We're left alone, but we're never alone. We're a unit, a culture within ourselves, the only members of our species. We're unique. When it comes to each other, we're so desperately connected that one slip causes a network-wide fall.

I say desperately, because that's what it is for us. Nothing but desperation can describe the feeling of a family member down. There is a point where nothing is impossible, where physical limits are met and broken, in order to save him.

I can recall several instances where such a feeling came in to play, the almost painful way the adrenaline supplies my muscles with energy. It bends me in insane ways, causes my limbs to tremble with the exhilarating rush of relief, harbors my immediate, angry response as soon as danger passes:

"_What were you __**thinking**__?"_

To lose a brother is to break off a physical part of me, a piece of my soul. The mere thought puts my heart off-beat, settles a pit of cold dread in my stomach. Like I said, it's more than your word _love._ It's more than one term in any human language can describe, because no human can say they are as separate from their species as we are.

It is our reason to be.

I can say these things because I know what it's like; I can sit here and feel the pain raw and unbidden like the first hour of a loss, because I've felt it before.

We had always thought Raph would be the first to go, because he is the one who most often bares his neck to the wolves. He holds with him the fantasy that he is invincible; even after everything we've seen, he seems to believe his sai can match any weapon, that his sarcasm can deflect bullets.

Nobody expected to find Michelangelo's nunchucks soaking in a puddle of his blood, in a few pints of what used to supply my youngest brother. Even after the fact we refused to believe it, such a finding could almost be considered a normality for our lifestyle. So, we kept searching mindlessly topside by night and sewer by day, willing away the exhaustion as we scoured the city.

We couldn't give up. For some reason, Don felt the need to slam us in the face with the reality of the situation; looking back on it, I want to say that it was a defense mechanism, that he was preparing himself for the worst. He kept searching, but was like a broken record… he spoke to me and Raph, keeping constant with the words, even though his tears.

_…too much blood… _

He was all talk of probability, and Raph didn't want to hear it. So my hotheaded brother kept on. I worked myself in to a state of near madness, following him out while ordering Don to stay behind with Splinter, that desperation driving me to all but beg Raph to come home. Completely unbearable was the thought of losing _two._

We were constantly fighting. We screamed our throats raw. Twice we sparred till the sweat gleamed halo-like on our skin. I finally settled in to a state of defeated silence, shadowing my brother in his mad runs, turning from him whenever he collapsed to grip his head and howl at the moon like a wounded animal. My heart fell to pieces with every tortured scream, the brittle bits ground to a finer dust whenever Raph called Mike's name.

There were no limits to my shame; the loss created a hole which was bottomless. It had its own gravity, and it sucked from me everything which made me alive, save for my heartbeat. I ran on autopilot for the sake of the other two, for our father, but nothing could shake me from my numbed state. I was detached, lost in my own thoughts, trapped in misery and grief.

The hole had even taken my voice, something which proved to be a fallback when I finally stumbled upon Mike's unconscious body, when I pressed my trembling fingers to his neck and found that fleeting pulse. My mouth open like a fish, I could only let air out in a silent scream, my insides spiking with relentless, dread-induced pain as I clawed my belt for my phone, eyes never leaving my wounded brother.

When Mike woke up, when he smiled at me, he melted me at my core, turned my legs to jelly, caused me to lose balance and topple over the edge. When he cried with me, with us, he sealed the understanding; if there had been any chance one of us wanted to wallow in ignorance, that was ripped from us. There is no way anything could be taken for granted again.

The leftover dust from my heart melted, too. It was forged to pieces, not exact replicas of the original. They don't fit together right; they are bound with your _love_ and then some, but they do not function like they used to. Jagged, they yield an uneven surface, sharp edges which poke, prod, and sometimes stab. Images cloud my mind, ghost memories of pain and loss and paranoia haunt my most terrifying nightmares.

The first time my heart was broken, it was broken completely.

Always the perfectionist, when I do something the first time, I try to do it right.


	3. Michelangelo: Crushed

_**A/N**__: It's Mikey's turn._

_I think it's important to let you all know that this is the 'death' chapter. However, this takes place when all is said and done. _

_Enjoy!

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_**Michelangelo: smile, crushed.**_

_ She was radiantly beautiful, courageous and kind to a fault. The breathing personification of human compassion, and an example of the kind of people we fight to save._

_ That is how I will remember her._

When it comes down to it, I'd say I'm a pretty simple guy. I run off of pizza and chips and soda. I smile when I'm happy, which is most of the time. When I'm anything but, you'll know about it.

It doesn't take much to make me laugh, to keep me content. My family's a big part in this whole happiness scheme, because they are a piece of me. It's corny as hell to say it, but that's the way things are with us.

When we're together, there isn't much we can't do. It's pretty awesome, that knowledge. It's like a rush; if you know you can match impossible, beat it's boundaries, how could you not laugh as you peel away the fear?

There's a way, I guess. There are limits to mortals, and unfortunately we're not super heroes. Neither are our friends, our Casey and April. We found that out the hard way.

No matter how many times a law is made, or warnings are blasted over the media, humans still do dangerous things. They smoke till the cancer eats their lungs, they drink their liver to cheese. They use alcohol and drugs then jump in a van and push it to fifty past a grade school when the kids are just getting out. They kill themselves and others, and the rest of them only pause in their shock before they shrug and move on.

It's kindof one of those things where you don't expect it to happen to you or someone you care about. Don said the name of it, said it had something to do with someone thinking they're kindof invincible, though I think mostly teenagers are supposed to think that way. Whatever. Point is, shit happens.

Being who we are and where we were, we didn't know about it until hours after. We weren't in the habit of seeing April daily anyway; it was more like a once or twice-a-week kind of deals, where she'd bring some groceries or whatever.

I guess that if she had to go, this way was best. I mean, she's- she _was_- good at saving people too, she had a good heart. Her kindness saved us a bunch of times. The newspaper had a tiny article for it, mostly to recognize her for her actions… otherwise she'd just be shoved in the obituary, 'cause accidents like hers happen all the time in the city.

To get to the point, some drunk angry depressed asshole walks out of a bar. He then smacks the front-end of his vehicle in to the side of another sedan. He flew halfway through the windshield, was killed on impact. I guess April and some other eyewitnesses saw.

She was the first to react. She called emergency services, and she opened the door and started to pull the kids out of the back. She got the younger one away, but the older one was hurt bad, crushed in the accident. I guess his dad, the driver, was already dead, and April was trying to comfort the immobilized kid until an ambulance came.

Someone else rounded the corner, and didn't have time to stop. Going too fast, didn't think any better because of the hour of night… or maybe just thought he was some sort of professional. Anyway, eyewitnesses say she smashed her car in there too, and April was thrown backwards out of the sedan, hit her head either in the doorway of the cab or out on the cement and somehow got the whole vehicle shoved on top of her. That's when the other dumbasses mentioned in the article stopped gaping and came to help. They got her in the ambulance, and she bled a lot, and I guess that's reason why she didn't make it past the next day.

At first, we couldn't absorb the news. It was unbelievable, because we were so detached from the incident. I think everybody kindof expected the Shredder to come and take her away, to threaten us, to put her in that damsel-in-distressed situation we were accustomed to trying to control. But no, we had to find out after the fact, with her body cold and the funeral plans in progress. There was no chance to say goodbye, no closure, just a visit to a fresh grave while the numbed Casey Jones sat in the passenger seat of the Battleshell, too distraught to bring his eyes off the dash.

We wanted him to come to the lair with us; he was too out of it to be trusted on his own. He refused, and finally we set up a little thing where we would pair up and spend nights with him, cooking for him in the beginning, handling him when his grief turned to rage and he'd smash everything in sight. We packed the pictures for him, we packed her clothes, anything that could be distinguished as belonging to her and her alone, and we put it in the attic. We took all the stuff of our late friend, the first human to recognize us as something other than a monster, and we put it away so it wouldn't smart so much to look at.

Don was the one who began packing. I was with him that night. Silently, suddenly, he got up from under the covers on the couch and just _started_. It took me a while to figure out exactly what he was doing, why he dragged up all those boxes from the antique shop and started stuffing things inside. When Leo and Raph came the next night, I guess they did it too because more stuff was packed when I got back. But when everything was said and done, we couldn't get rid of everything.

Casey was prone to outbursts. He would be 'fine' for a small amount of time, then he'd just explode. He'd play with the ring on his finger, call it _her ring_. On the day that everything was finally put away, he noticed, and started finding her in the stuff that was harder to replace. He sat on the white sofa, gripping the pillows to himself as though it were a tangible representation of her spirit, and would moan: _she picked this out. When we first moved in, we went shopping, and she saw it, and she knew it was perfect…_

I smile so often, I didn't realize that not doing so could make me feel so… dirty. Clammy inside. I also didn't realize the amount of pain that had to be involved in order to put me there.

I sat next to Case, and from the corner of my eye saw Don slide to the floor. They both choked on air, both suffocated with the love they felt for this one woman. I sat between them, cold, frozen in the space because I had no idea what to do.

I had no idea what to say.

If I couldn't smile, how could I even attempt to will happiness on anyone else, on those who were probably hurting more than me? How do you make something happen when you have nothing to work with?

The couch. Memories flitted before my mind's eye, remembering how heavy the thing had been, how hard it was to walk all the way up the twisting staircase with something so blocky.

_ April, she sat down heavily on it, hair stringy and wet with sweat, grinning her victory, so happy she was finally moving in with Casey…_

She was here. She was all around me, she had memories of this place too, as sure as she occupied mine. She used to be here, she used to feel, she used to sit here and think and speak and _live_ with the rest of us.

She loved us all. Now she was dead, her brain shut off, and she was no more, because that's what makes a person. All the evidence I had… it was in my memories. Because now anybody who didn't know her could never bear witness to her presence.

The knowledge brought with it a sickening finality that I had somehow escaped until that point. It left me gasping right along with my companions, made me double over, curl into myself.

At that moment, I felt her loss. I missed her as much as I could ever miss her, one of the only friends I had ever had. I had never been to a place so devoid of the happiness, ever.

As the feeling crushed me, deadened a part of me and broke off an April-sized piece of my heart, I knew I could never take a smile for granted again. It was something used to express light-heartedness, but there is nothing more serious than the need for it.

I keep smiling. I keep it up for my brothers and I keep it up for her, because that's what she liked to see.

And because I don't want any of us to visit that dead place again. For a long time.

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_If Mikey seemed OOC…well, he's bitter. I was trying to get in to his mind to find something more than just the baby brother who sits around and cries all the time when there's a loss. Not like there's anything wrong with it, but I wanted to make him more mature… kindof. As mature as he can get!_


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